Two friends started a car wash business 50 years ago. Their two sons are keeping it going today.

Mariya Manzhos

Tuesday

Oct 2, 2018 at 5:24 PMOct 2, 2018 at 10:45 PM

Back in 2002, Nick Campisi and Doug MacLean were moving up in their careers: Campisi was doing pediatric cancer research at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and planned on going to medical school, and MacLean was about to start a new position at a large IT company.

But Campisi and MacLean took stock of their professional paths when their fathers, two high school friends from Lexington who started a carwash business together, approached their sons with an idea. If they were interested, Campisi and MacLean could take over the car wash business that their fathers, Ron Campisi and Bob MacLean, had started 40 years ago.

“It stopped me in my tracks, I couldn’t respond,” said MacLean, who lives in Winchester with his family. Both sons worked at their fathers’ car washes part-time in high school, but they had never discussed that one day they would inherit the business.

“There was no pressure to be in the business,” said Campisi.

Taking over Shield System Car Wash would mean learning the inner workings of a car wash business from scratch. It also meant taking a pay cut, at least during the transition.

But after some deliberation, the two friends came to see the bigger picture behind a potential new career. They would continue the legacy of their fathers’ business and partnership. “The thought of selling it to someone else or to a developer who could destroy it just didn’t feel right,” Campisi said. So after nearly a year of deliberation, the friends had agreed to make the leap.

This year, Shield System Car Wash is celebrating 50 years since opening its first location in Cambridge in 1968. Today, Campisi and MacLean run five locations -- Winchester, Brighton and three locations in Billerica, one of which includes a touchless automatic car wash where a car is sprayed and waxed without being touched by brushes.

50-year history

But back in the late 1960s it was just a group of friends with an entrepreneurial streak waxing cars in the driveways of their neighbors and family in Lexington. When nearly everyone’s car was sparkling clean, the friends wanted to grow their business, recalls Ron Campisi, Nick’s father and one of the three founding partners of the business. Ron’s brother found a car wash location in the Fresh Pond area in Cambridge, where the Alewife T station is currently located, and friends started a more lucrative car wash business. With 75 cents for a wash and 25 cents for waxing, on a good day the friends made $1 per car.

After the Cambridge location, others followed: Brighton, Winchester, Billerica and Lowell, among others. “We enjoyed what we were doing,” said Ron. “We learned the business, marketing, mechanics -- each one of us did different things and excelled at that.”

Putting egos aside

The two friends grew up watching their fathers work long shifts and go without getting paid while they were building up the business. On one occasion, Ron Campisi recalls, after installing the first mobile car phones, they couldn’t afford to keep them and decided to take them out.

“We both saw how hard our fathers worked to build the business,” said Campisi.

But but what the young boys also observed was how two best friends worked through their differences while running the business, sometimes getting into fights, but always ending on a positive note.

“There were some heated debates, they would cuss each other out, but then would give each other a hug,” MacLean recalls. “They always tried to put their egos aside and figure out what’s best for the business.”

Working up to becoming owners

When Campisi and MacLean decided to join the business in 2003, they started as detailers, typically an entry-level position, before they moved up to shift supervisors and eventually fully transitioned to ownership. The full process took five years. “We were promoted like anybody else would be if they had started in the business, just at a more accelerated pace,” said Campisi. And this kind of work ethic is part of the Shield System’s ethos.

In a way, the 50-year-old business strikes a balance between an old-fashioned family business where the owners know customers by name and what they like, and a more forward-looking and tech-savvy mindset. The company has an app allowing customers to buy washes and give them as gifts to friends. The owners can also respond to their customers within minutes. But both Campisi and MacLean make sure that their fathers’ values live on. Both like to be “on the floor” to interact with their customers. “What sets us apart is our employees,” said Campisi, noting that some of them have worked for their fathers. “They understand their legacy, and the value of customer service.”

The lives of two Shield System families have always been closely intertwined: the families went skiing together and vacationed together in the Cayman islands. Although Ron Campisi is now the only surviving original partner, the families still get together and reminisce about the early days of the car wash business. And that life-long history is at the heart of it all. “Shield System is an extended family,” said Campisi. “There is still that bond.”